Woman Says Man Posing As A Cabbie Assaulted Her

December 18, 1992|By Jerry Crimmins.

A 32-year-old South Side woman told police Thursday she was tied up, blindfolded and repeatedly sexually assaulted by a man she thought was a cabdriver who had agreed to drive her home after she bought a Christmas tree. The woman described her assailant as a black man in his late 30s, 6 feet 1 inch tall, 165 pounds, wearing a red and white Bulls jacket and blue pants, with his hair in short dreadlocks, said Sgt. Rich Kobel of the Pullman violent crimes unit.

The assailant was missing the little finger and ring finger of his right hand, and had a scar over his right eye. He spoke with a Haitian or Jamaican accent, the woman told police.

Although the victim described the vehicle in which the attack took place as a red and white taxicab, she also told police it had no meter and there were no inside door handles on the rear doors.

The woman gave police a license plate number for the car, but it is not registered to a taxicab, Kobel said.

The woman said she went out to buy a Christmas tree Wednesday and afterward hailed what she thought was a cab in the 7900 block of South Champlain Avenue.

The driver put the Christmas tree in the trunk and tied down the trunk lid with rope, but kept the rest of the rope he did not use, she told police. While driving south on the Dan Ryan Expressway, the driver pulled over onto the shoulder, climbed into the back seat and bound the woman with the rope, gagged her with a sock and blindfolded her, she said.

She said the driver repeatedly assaulted her in the car for 16 hours, but because of the blindfold, she did not know where she was. He robbed her of $50 plus food stamps before releasing her Thursday morning at 69th Street and Normal Avenue, Kobel said. She was treated at St. Bernard`s Hospital.